Learning
by DaughterOfHypatia
Summary: Lucius has much to learn about being human.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing from the Harry Potter universe; I'm only taking Lucius out to play.

A/N: This story is set six years after the end of the second wizarding war. It's AU post-Deathly Hallows. I have a mild obsession with Lucius Malfoy. Enjoy.

March, 2005

The first time Lucius laid eyes on Pris, he had only just moved in to his new, magic-free home.

That had been the worst of the punishments for his involvement in both the first and second wizarding wars. It was worse than the five years he spent in Azkaban. Even his divorce seemed trivial when faced with the prospect of having to live without magic. He knew he was going to feel weak and powerless for some time while he adjusted to his new surroundings, and he loathed the thought of depending on _muggles_ for assistance. No one had bothered to teach him even the basics before they dumped him here. Of course they hadn't; ex-Death Eaters were outside the scope of the post-war Ministry's so-called morality.

And so he found himself under the watchful eye of the American Magic Administration in sunny Jupiter, Florida, in a house whose square footage fell short of his bedchambers at Malfoy Manor. Why they'd deserted him _here_ was beyond his comprehension. All he knew was that he was supremely unhappy, and unpacking his cherished possessions from these flimsy, _heavy_ boxes was wearing on his last nerve. It was only March, how could it possibly be so damned _hot_?

Sweat ran from his temples, down his neck, into his impractical dress shirt, and Lucius sighed. There were several boxes left to move inside, and he had no idea if the house even _had_ a cooling system, much less how to operate it. The box he carried was dropped to the gravel with a thud, and Lucius sank onto the small stairway of his porch in defeat. The soft linen handkerchief in his shirt pocket was soaked through with sweat by this point, and it did little to wick away the moisture on his face and neck. If he was not given a reprieve from this heat soon, he might be tempted to throw himself in the ocean and end it all.

Pris peered out from behind the blinds of her kitchen window at the tall, blond man dragging cardboard boxes into his house. It was strange, she thought. When she'd gone to bed, the house had been empty, but when she awoke that morning the front lawn had been littered with brown, unmarked boxes. The big blond stared at them as if in a daze, and then suddenly he was re-animated, moving the containers inside his new home. He seemed harmless enough, with his little white hanky and oddly formal clothing. The task at hand seemed to daunt him, and she was sure he could use some help, judging by the way he had suddenly slumped onto the porch. Besides, she remembered how lonely she'd felt moving into a new house by herself. At least she could offer him some of the lemonade she'd made yesterday. That would be neighborly. She pulled the pitcher from the refrigerator, filled a cup with ice, and smoothed a hand down her yellow cotton sundress before venturing across the hot pavement of the cul-de-sac.

He watched her approach, and Pris got the notion that he was sizing her up. Her five foot, two inch frame must not have been too threatening, however, because he visibly relaxed as she stepped in front of him. Her hazel eyes met his argent ones, and for a moment Pris forgot how to speak. He may not have looked intimidating from far away, but up close he most certainly was. He had seemed so much smaller from across the street, and those _eyes_…

"You look like you could use a nice, cold glass of lemonade," she said after he'd blinked and broken whatever spell she'd been under. She filled the glass of ice with the chilled liquid, and handed it to him. He stared at it skeptically for a moment before taking it from her.

"I'm Priscilla Thomas, I live just across the way," she said with more confidence, pointing behind her at the blue-shuttered cracker box she called home.

"Lucius Malfoy," he replied, sniffing the contents of the cup. His voice was low, accented. He didn't look at her as he spoke. Pris almost laughed at the way he stuck his nose over the rim of the glass. Did he think she was trying to poison him, for goodness sake?

The small sip he took was immediately spit back into the glass, and he winced. This time Pris laughed.

"Oh, my. That bad, huh?" she asked, smiling. His reaction was understandable; she did tend to go a little light on the sugar.

"It's a bit… _tart_," he coughed, but took another sip anyway. He made a concerted effort not to pull another face as he gulped down the entire contents of the tumbler in record time.

"If you keep that up, I might get the idea that you _like_ my lemonade, Mr. Malfoy."

The blond raised his eyebrows at her, and then, as though it pained him to do so, he quirked his lips into a small smile. His eyes darted away quickly, but she had seen the war of emotions raging behind them in that brief exchange. He said nothing for a few moments, simply stared at the boxes on his front lawn. Priscilla shifted her weight from foot to foot anxiously.

"I can help you bring these inside, if you'd like," she offered, gesturing to the boxes with a nod of her head.

Lucius ran a large hand over his ponytailed head, twisting the length of bound hair in his fingers and settling it over his shoulder. "Hmm," he intoned, "alright."

Priscilla wondered why he was so hesitant to accept her help. In fact, he'd been so reluctant to look at her, even when speaking, that she almost thought to be offended. But, then again, everyone had their tics, and God only knew _she_ had her own issues. He'd probably figure that out if they ever spoke for any length of time, so she brushed off the sting of his ambivalence in favor of another smile.

"Alright" she echoed. "I'll just pop over to my house for a minute to put this stuff away. I'll be right back. I think I've got a dolly in the carport," she trailed, looking over her shoulder to said space. When she turned back, Lucius was staring at the glass in his hands, an inscrutable look on his face. She thought he must have many secrets, to keep his features locked so tightly.

"Glass?" she asked gently, holding out her hand. That seemed to snap him out of his daze.

"Oh," he said, blinking, "right. Here." He placed the glass, still half-full of ice, into her outstretched palm. Priscilla stood there for a moment, waiting for a 'thank you' that never came. The need to be offended rose up again, but she took a deep breath and pushed it back down. He was English, if his accent was anything to go by, her mind supplied. Maybe they didn't have the need to be unfailingly polite ingrained into their very beings, like Southerners often did. Strangely, she'd always thought the opposite. Her mouth was pulled into a tight line as she walked across the pavement to her home.

Well, this was going to be all kinds of fun.

Lucius had watched the petite woman striding toward him with a mixture of curiosity, trepidation, and amusement. He didn't suppose he should be too wary of such a small female, especially one wearing… _that_ dress. It was pale yellow, fell just past her knees, and was emblazoned with what Lucius could see now was a chain of daisies around the hem. He felt his shoulders relax. And she was carrying… some sort of liquid. He spied the glass of ice, and almost smiled at his luck. His eyes slid upward to meet those of the stranger, and when they did, the girl stopped in her tracks. They were only a few feet apart now, and Lucius thought he saw fear flashing in her hazel eyes. He wanted to tell her he was perfectly _harmless_, that he'd been effectively gelded by the Ministry. But he couldn't, he couldn't say a word about his magical history. Damned wizarding laws.

She had offered him something called _lemon-ade_, and he'd found it jaw-clenchingly tart. He drank it anyway. It _was_ a cold beverage, after all. He said very little to her, because he didn't know what to say. 'Hello, did you know I've killed people?' didn't seem like a good conversation starter. His answers to her questions were brief and perfunctory. When she'd offered to help him move the boxes inside, he'd agreed. Maybe he could get her to explain the house's cooling apparatus to him. She was a pleasant enough woman, he thought. She looked to be about Draco's age…

Draco: his son, his heir… Oh, how the boy loathed him for what he'd done to their family. He had never forgiven Lucius for his dangerous loyalty to the Dark Lord, nor had Narcissa. Both had left him to rot in Azkaban without so much as a visit, and Narcissa had filed for divorce faster than he imagined was possible. Their absence hurt him more than he wanted to admit. He stared at the cup in his hands for a long minute, pondering his sudden melancholy thoughts.

The girl asked him for her glass then, shaking him from his reverie. He handed it to her, and watched her stare at him like she was waiting for something else. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, she turned away and walked back across the circular pavement to her own small home.

That had been the most awkward social interaction of his life, and he knew it was his own damned fault. The girl had seemed genuine, and she was welcoming him to the neighborhood, wasn't she? Lucius was less disdainful of muggles than he'd been in the past, but that didn't mean he _trusted_ them. Though, that was most likely the whole point of his relocation, wasn't it?

It was only a few minutes before the woman came outside once more, sans pitcher. This time, she was pushing a red, metal _thing_, and wearing a pink, sleeveless top and denim shorts. He assumed the red monstrosity was the… _dolly_… she'd mentioned previously.

"So, where do you want to start?" she asked him.

"I'd like to start by having you explain something to me," he admitted, opening his front door to let her pass. She stepped out from behind the metal contraption and inside his home without hesitation, and he shut the door behind her. Lucius heard her gasp, and he knew what she would say before she said it.

"It's like an oven in here!" she exclaimed in shock. Sweat had already begun to bead along her hairline, and she fanned herself to no avail.

It was unbelievably hot in the small house.

"I haven't been able to work the cooling mechanism… if you could show me how to use it, I would be grateful."

"Goodness, yes!" she cried. "Where is the thermostat?"

"Erm, it's… I…" Lucius stalled, for in truth he had no idea what the _thermo-stat_ was, or where it was located. She seemed to sense his ignorance on the matter, and looked over his shoulder. The little white box was just there, on the wall next to the kitchen doorway. She brushed past him in her haste, and he caught the scent of ginger on the humid air.

"Look here," she commanded, flipping down the front panel of the thermostat. Two little switches sat underneath labels denoting 'cool'/'heat' and 'auto'/'fan'. A third ran the length of the box and seemed to denote temperature. She toggled the switches to 'cool' and 'auto', and slid the bar on top to the line above the 70º mark. As soon as she'd done this, she turned to face him, wiping a fine sheen of perspiration from her face with her left hand.

"See? It's easy. Are thermostats that much different… wherever you're from?" she asked.

Lucius smiled. Of course, why hadn't he thought of that very same excuse? He was, after all, a foreigner. She could hardly fault him for that.

_Like you once faulted those of her kind for their origins?_

He studied her face, and found she was looking at him intently. She was actually quite lovely. Why hadn't he noticed that before?

"Yes. Things are very different where I am from, Miss Thomas," he assented, smiling at her in what he hoped was a non-threatening way.

"Oh, call me Pris," she returned, flipping closed the front panel of the air conditioning unit. "Everyone else does." She grinned at him, and he realized she had laugh lines, and dimples.

"Alright. Miss Pris it is, then," he replied smoothly. She chuckled and shook her head, sending her short, black hair into her face.

"Now you sound like my mother."

Lucius raised his eyebrows at her and felt his upper lip pull back in a smirk.

"I am certainly _not_ your mother."

Pris' laughter bounced off the white walls of his tiny home, and he thought the sound was rather pleasant.

In the end, Pris had demonstrated the use of most of the appliances in his house, and not once did she question his ignorance, or make him feel badly about it. In the following months she had come over nearly every day and helped him adjust to non-magical life. They had formed an easy friendship, and Lucius was relieved to find that his prejudices against her kind were fading more and more quickly into the past every time he saw her. She even called him Lucius, now. Granted, it had taken her almost a month to do so, but eventually she had acquiesced to his demands that she stop calling him 'Mr. Malfoy'. He had finally settled in to a simple, comfortable routine thanks to his new muggle friend.

Each day he would wake up, bring in the paper, and read the front section while he waited for Pris to bring him whatever she'd decided to make for breakfast before she headed off to work. This morning it was pancakes and bacon. Lucius' eyes lit up in anticipation. He particularly enjoyed the bacon.

But Pris didn't greet him with her usual smile. Today she looked forlorn, and tired. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and her normally well-kempt hair stuck out from her head at odd angles.

"Good gods, what's happened to you?" Lucius asked, genuine concern softening his words.

She didn't look at him when she placed the plate full of food on the kitchen table, and it was then that Lucius noticed the finger-shaped bruises around her upper arms. _What in the world?_

"Pris, look at me," he said, and sucked in a breath when she finally did.

The left side of her face was black and blue, and she had a split lip. Her eyes were bloodshot, as if she'd been awake all night. It was obvious someone had beaten her. Lucius felt his fingers curl and flex in anticipation of exacting vengeance on her abuser.

"Who did this to you?" he demanded harshly, and immediately regretted his tone. Her eyes had begun to water as she cast her gaze to the floor, and she shrunk away from him.

"Pris… tell me. Who did this?" he urged again, more gently. Her eyes rose from their fixed position, and the tears came at last.

"Bill. My h-husband. Ex-husband," she said, wiping gingerly at her bruised face. Lucius pulled a Kleenex (a delightful replacement for his impractical handkerchief) from its box and handed it to the crying girl. She blotted her eyes with gentle fingers, balling up the Kleenex and handing it back to Lucius. He wrinkled his nose, but took it from her anyway and tossed it in the waste bin.

"I left him last year after he p-put me in the h-hospital," she stuttered, drawing shaky, gasping breaths. "I moved here to get away from him. I guess he f-found me," she hiccupped, and settled onto a nearby chair.

Lucius was momentarily stunned into silence. He had wondered why a young woman like Pris was living all lone in this pit of a town, but he hadn't wanted to pry. Now, however, he wished he'd been a bit more inquisitive. He might have saved her this pain, if only…

_Only _what?_ You would have warded her doors? Hexed her miserable cur of an ex-husband into oblivion?_

He scowled at his foolish thoughts. He would of course need the use of a wand for these endeavors, and he could never wield magic again. His fingers curled and flexed a second time as he imagined wrapping them around the throat of the man who'd harmed his small friend. Even that was likely out of the question. The AMA would surely get wind of his returned homicidal tendencies, and then he'd be thrown back into a prison cell to rot until the end of his considerable life span. Resignedly, Lucius sat down opposite the shaking girl and took her delicate hands into his larger ones.

"In that case, I think it's best we contact the proper authorities," he said, shame etched into his otherwise steady baritone. Pris' eyes went wide in alarm, and she shook her head vehemently.

"No! I can't… I mean, I would, but…" here she stopped to take a deep breath in order to compose herself. "What good would it do? I don't have any proof it was him."

She noted the careful way Lucius was observing her injuries; she could practically feel the heat of his silver gaze on her upper arms. His thumb traced a slow, comforting arc over the back of her hand. It was strange for him to be touching her like this. The most he'd ever dared previously was to shake her hand in thanks for showing him how to turn on the shower. He'd been very excited about that, for some reason. Besides, that had been months ago, and he'd kept his hands entirely to himself since. She regretted the words almost before they left her mouth.

"For all the they know, it could have been you that did this."

Now Lucius' grey eyes were upon hers, flashing in indignation.

"I would _never_…" he began, but stopped mid-sentence because he _had_. He'd beaten women like her, and done it much, much more violently. Some of them had died. The words stuck to his tongue like poisoned honey, and he thought he might be sick. The terrible irony of the situation struck him silent once more. Pris could tell he was discomfited, but not for the reasons she suspected.

"I don't mean that you would ever do that… _this_… It's just that the police would want some sort of evidence that it was Bill who hit me. No one saw him but me, I'll bet. You didn't see him, did you?" she asked.

"No."

"Exactly. I'm sorry, Lucius, but I've done this so many times," she sighed tiredly, as if it were a mere inconvenience.

"Done what? Run away when your bully of a husband beats you silly? Has he faced any consequences for his actions?"

Pris shrugged her shoulders. "I got a restraining order against him after… after the last time," she whispered. She pulled her eyes off the floor and pinned them to Lucius'. "He beat me so badly I couldn't walk for three days, and I… I'll never have children."

Her confession came out in a great rush, and her tightly-held shoulders slumped. Her hazel eyes never left his, though, and Lucius wondered if he was the first person to whom Pris had told this fact. She stared at him as if awaiting judgment. His thumb had stopped its idle motion upon her hand, and he looked down at their intertwined digits. In days gone by he might have rejoiced at the loss of another muggle's ability to infect the gene pool with their weaknesses, but here, now, all he wanted to do was strangle the life out of the worthless bastard who'd rent such a large hole in Pris' world.

"I'm not sure what to say," he murmured, eyes still transfixed upon the joining of their hands. "I've never been very good at providing comfort." It was an understatement, he knew, and it had never particularly bothered him until he'd met Pris. He'd think on the reasons for that later.

Pris squeezed his hands in hers. "You don't have to say anything. I know it's shocking. There is _something_ you could do for me, though," she said. When Lucius remained silent, she continued. "You could let me use your spare bedroom tonight, make sure Bill doesn't come back, and if he does you can be my witness."

He mulled that over in his mind. On one hand it was hardly appropriate to allow an unmarried young woman to stay in his home, but on the other… on the other, damn impropriety! This woman was his friend, the only one he'd had in a very long time, and it would be unforgiveable to let her fend for herself after learning something like this. He was in unfamiliar territory; doing something for its own sake had been lost on Lucius for the first fourty-nine of his fifty years. While he lived in the wizarding world, he had expected nothing less than reciprocation for any time or attention spent on others, and he had certainly never been the one to offer his help. When asked for, it was often given grudgingly, and only if Lucius could squeeze some sort of personal gain from it. What a deplorable snake he'd been.

"Of course," he finally conceded. "It's the least I can do for a friend."

Pris squeezed his hands again and smiled as much as her split lip would allow. "Thank you, Lucius."

He returned her smile with one of his own. "Think nothing of it."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you to my first reviewer, tambrathegreat; you really are! The title of this chapter comes from the amazing song of the same name by The Decemberists. I hope everyone is enjoying reading this fic as much as I'm enjoying writing it.

…………

Pris used Lucius' telephone, a thing he still had yet to touch, to call in to her workplace and beg off the next few days. She told her boss she was sick, even coughed a bit to play up her fake illness, and Lucius had to wonder how much practice she'd had at this sort of thing. How many times had she done exactly this, faking maladies in order to recover from her injuries in private? He knew Pris was no delicate flower like Narcissa had been, but the thought of her doing something like this on such a regular basis that she seemed almost _bored_ irritated him. When she came out of the kitchen, cordless phone in hand, he couldn't help the scowl from marring his features.

"What's wrong?" she asked, placing the receiver on the cradle.

"Have you done this often? Called your employer and lied to save yourself the embarrassment of being seen in public like that?" he returned, gesturing with sharp movements to her bruised cheek and eye.

She flushed and looked anywhere but at him. "Yes."

The admission didn't surprise him, not really. He'd known she'd done it before, when he'd overheard her call. Her voice never waivered, her speech sounded rehearsed to his ears. It still made his stomach clench in the way it did when he witnessed something tragic.

"Hmm," he intoned. "I see. Pris?"

"Yes?"

"Go home, pack a bag for your stay, and come right back. When you get here, you are to lie down on the couch and rest, am I understood?"

She gawked at him. Was he giving her orders? "Umm… alright."

Lucius tilted his head forward and frowned at her. "Don't dawdle."

"I'm going, I going!" she sighed, brushing past him to the front door. "Leave this unlocked, if you don't mind." Lucius nodded, and she stepped outside into the hot July sun without a backward glance.

_Well,_ he thought_, this is going to be interesting._

…………

Perhaps the thing Lucius admired most about Pris was her candid nature. With her, what you saw was what you got, and if Pris was upset with him, she made sure to let him know it. He was afraid he'd been a bit harsh with her in practically ordering her to bed rest earlier, and he thought when she returned she would be angry.

Such was not the case. Pris walked into his house with her nose in a book and a small bag that was full to bursting. He watched her toss the bag onto the floor beside the couch and lie down, all without pulling her eyes from the pages of the novel. She only looked at him when he picked up her luggage and grunted at how much it weighed.

"What have you got in here?" he queried, frowning at her. She was looking at him over the top of her book, and he thought he saw the corners of her eyes squint in amusement.

"That's just my overnight bag. If I'd been staying here any longer, we might need the dolly."

Now he was sure of it. She was laughing at him from behind the book.

…………

The rest of their day together passed quickly. They didn't talk at great length, but they never had, and so the silences were comfortable. Late that evening, after a light supper, Pris lay sprawled out on Lucius' couch in her nightclothes. In her hands was the book she'd been reading all afternoon, and he was increasingly curious as to the content. He'd managed a glimpse or two at the cover from his position in the armchair across from her, but it was sufficiently ambiguous. _Time's Captive_ it read in bold, black lettering. A pair of shackles rendered in shiny earth tones adorned the front. Could it be a horror novel? Adventure? Suspense?

"It's a romance novel. You've practically burned a hole in the back of it with your eyes, Lucius," she said when his mouth dropped open in surprise.

"I wasn't aware I was staring," he muttered, and picked at an invisible piece of lint on his immaculate shirt in embarrassment.

"I don't think you've blinked in the last few minutes." He heard the laughter in her voice, and he couldn't help but twist his lips in a wry smile.

"So you've been watching me closely then, have you?" It was said in jest, to needle her as she was needling him. He wasn't prepared for the blush that stained her cheeks.

"Well, it's hard to ignore you when you're staring me down like that," she countered defensively. Her eyes immediately returned to the book, and there was an odd moment of awkward silence.

"My wife used to read those," he found himself saying, regretting it instantly. He had just wanted to break the quiet between them; he hadn't meant to divulge information about his past. Lucius dreaded the day he'd have to tell Pris something, _anything _about his life before he'd met her. He was quite content in the bubble he'd made here with his non-magical friend, and the key to its continued stability was, in his eyes, Pris' ignorance of the man he'd once been.

"I think she read them to escape the reality that was our long, loveless marriage." He cringed even as the words left his mouth. What was he thinking?

"I… that's awful, Lucius. Why would you stay married to someone you don't love?" she asked, setting her book aside and sitting up on the couch.

He arched an eyebrow at her. "We had a son to raise. Why would you stay married for so long to a man who beat you black and blue? We all do things for a reason, Pris, even if it is a bad one, and sometimes we cannot see the error of our ways until it is too late."

Pris got the feeling that Lucius was alluding to something other than his marriage, or hers, but let it slide.

"You are right about that," she nodded in agreement.

Lucius' lips pulled back into a well-practiced smirk of self-satisfaction. "Indeed."

"Try not to look _too_ smug about it," she chided playfully.

"I've been told 'smug' is my best look." And just like that, he had steered the conversation away from dangerous territory. Or so he thought.

"Oh, I don't know," Pris continued. "I think I prefer 'disarmingly intense'."

Lucius furrowed his brows. "And how does that one go?"

She tilted her head forward and stared at him from underneath her eyelashes. He copied her actions, and she grinned.

"That's the one. It's your eyes, I think. They're very expressive." She was blushing again.

Her words, as well as her reaction to them, gave him pause. No one had ever described Lucius Malfoy's eyes as 'expressive'. Icy, cold, the shade of the sky on a dreary winter morning, perhaps. He'd even heard his gaze likened to the color of a headstone. All of these had been appropriate in his Death Eater Days, of course, but now his eyes were 'expressive'? He wanted to ask, "And what, exactly, do they say?", but he wasn't sure he'd like the answer, so he simply smiled at her in return.

Just then, Pris' mouth split into a wide yawn, and she brought a hand up to cover it.

"Oh, my goodness," she breathed. "It must be getting late."

Lucius checked his wristwatch, a gift from Pris, and nodded. "It's ten-thirty. I'll stay up a bit longer, I think. Your miscreant of an ex-husband may yet show." They had been watching for the arrival of Bill's pickup truck from their vantage point in Lucius' living room, but he hadn't returned to finish what he'd started with Pris the night before.

"If he does, you call the police."

Lucius nodded, but there was a look in his eye…

"I'm serious, Lucius. Call the police. Don't you dare try to confront him, or I will be _very_ angry." Her tone brokered no argument, and Pris always meant what she said. She closed her book and stood, stretching stiff legs.

"I will call the authorities, Pris," Lucius conceded. As much as he wanted to argue with her, he knew she was right. Of course she was. His bubble of contentment demanded he remain low-key, and knocking her ex's lights out was definitely a high-profile action. Besides, he planned to avoid a return trip to jail, magical or muggle, if it was at all humanly possible.

Pris yawned again, and Lucius rolled his eyes. "Oh, go to bed, already," he ribbed. She was swaying lightly on her feet, so he put a hand on her arm to steady her. She glanced down at his hand and then into his eyes.

"Thank you for everything, Lucius," she murmured. "Wake me if Bill shows up?"

He nodded. "Goodnight, Miss Pris." He had taken to calling her that when he was feeling particularly cheeky. It always made her smile, and this time was no exception.

"Goodnight, Mr. Malfoy."

Lucius dropped his hand, and he watched her walk down the small hallway to the guestroom. When she reached the door she looked back, surprised to see him still staring at her. Even in the dim light, he knew she was blushing. He liked to see the flush creep up her neck and cheeks like a wildfire, he realized, and it pleased him to no end that he was the cause of that reaction. He grinned broadly at her, and she smiled timidly in return before entering the room and closing the door.

…………

He'd waited until midnight for the coward to show, but Lucius' eyes had started to close of their own volition, so he trudged down the hall to his room and fell into a fitful sleep. His rest was nightly plagued by dreams and visions of his past life. This evening was no different. He saw himself in his Death Eater's mask, chasing a muggle girl down a dark alleyway. He could hear her frightened, rapid breathing, and his dream self smiled in anticipation. The girl cut to the right and found herself trapped between a rock and a hard place. Lucius stepped behind her, watching with amusement as his considerable shadow dwarfed the girl, who'd pressed her back into the brick wall that was the alley's end.

"Come now. I won't harm you, I promise," his dream self said. The girl, hidden in shadow, lifted her chin.

"No." The word, uttered without hesitation, caused his dream self to grab the girl by her delicate jaw.

"No matter. I'll enjoy breaking your spirit, along with your body." With that, he pulled the girl from the darkness into the dim streetlight. It was Pris.

Lucius awoke with a start.

As soon as he realized he was in his own room, he glanced at his bedside clock. 2 a.m. With a groan he rolled onto his side and took a deep breath. While his dreams were usually violent, none of them had involved Pris until now. He wasn't sure he wanted to go back to sleep yet, lest the dream pick up where it left off.

A noise from the front of the house caused his eyes to widen in alarm. He reached under his pillow, feeling for a wand that wasn't there, and had not been in six years. He almost laughed at himself for his blunder, but the noise came again, and so Lucius crept from his bed and down the hall in his sleep pants, wielding the only weapon he could find on a moment's notice: his hairbrush.

What he found in his kitchen was alarming, but for entirely other reasons. Pris was on her tiptoes, pulling the contents of his cabinets onto the counter and swaying her hips back and forth with the effort. He set the hairbrush on the counter beside him and watched her wiggle and strain, taking in the smooth expanse of skin that was revealed when she stretched her arms above her head. Her seeking fingers knocked a box of tea from its place on the shelf, and it fell to the floor at Lucius' feet. Pris turned to retrieve it, and was surprised, to say the least, to find him leaning in the doorway, staring at her.

"Jesus Christ!" she exclaimed, clutching at her chest in fright.

"I prefer Lucius, thank you," he smirked, picking up the box and handing it to her after she'd recovered.

"You scared the bejesus out of me. Did I wake you?" she asked, noting his state of undress. Lucius crossed his arms over his bare chest.

"No, but I did think my home was being burgled."

Pris looked abashed. "I'm sorry, I just couldn't sleep. I thought a hot cup of tea might help me relax. I'm sorry," she repeated, fiddling with the box in her hands.

"Oh, stop apologizing. It was my silly mistake, anyway," he admitted. "Why don't you make me a cup as well? I, for one, will not be going back to sleep any time soon."

She looked up, then, and nodded. "Sure."

He sat down at the kitchen table and watched her make them two cups. She hummed softly to herself the entire time, and rather than finding the sound annoying, as he was wont to do, it made him smile. _What a cozy domestic scene_, he thought to himself. Then his dream flitted through his mind, and his smile faded just as she brought him his mug.

"So, why are you awake?"

He frowned at his tea before taking a sip. It was hot, strong. Just the way he liked it. "What do you mean?"

"You said _I_ didn't wake you up. What did?"

"I was having a dream…" he began, "a nightmare, really."

Pris' face took on a look of compassion, and Lucius wanted to rage at her for her naivety. _If you knew what I've dreamt, never mind what I've done…_ he thought. But she did not know, and unless something were to interrupt his sanity, she never would.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked quietly, cupping her tea in her small hands.

"No," he replied, with an air of finality. "No."

Pris remained silent until they had finished their tea. Once she'd put the cups in the sink, she took her seat again and looked at Lucius in contemplation.

"Lucius?"

"Hmm?"

"How old are you?"

"I am fifty-one. Why do you ask?"

Pris shrugged her shoulders at this. "Just curious, I guess. When I first saw you, I thought you must be older than that."

Lucius raised his brows in amusement. "How so?"

"Your hair."

"My hair?"

"Yes. The first time I saw it, I thought it was white."

Lucius sneered at her choice of description. "It is most certainly _not_ white," he huffed in indignation. "It is a very pale blond, as is common in all the males of my lineage."

Pris' bruised face lit up in a smile, and she leaned forward conspiratorially. "Oh, do tell, good sir," she said in a haughty tone. Lucius was baffled.

"Are you mocking me?"

"Nooo…" she said, in a voice that might have sounded scandalized. "Of course I am, you silly, blond aristocrat!" She took this opportunity to laugh at the expression on his face. "Sometimes you just sound so… I don't know. Posh. Highbrow. Maybe Victorian is a better word…" she trailed, grinning at him.

"Now, see here, young lady. I'll not be mocked in my own home," he warned, but knew as well as she that the words were empty. Pris was enjoying his slight discomfort. It wasn't often she could make Lucius lose his cool, but when he did it was highly entertaining.

"What are you going to do, Lucius? Spank me?" She wiggled her eyebrows at him and laughed playfully, but Lucius heard the suggestion behind her words. Now they were back into dangerous territory.

"Why, Priscilla Thomas, if I didn't know better I'd think you were flirting with me."

"And?" she asked, crossing her legs, "What if I am?" Pris was no shrinking violet, and the thought of her attempting to seduce him both delighted and scared the daylights out of Lucius.

"I'm old enough to be your father, Pris," he said soberly, though even he did not feel the conviction in those words.

"You are certainly _not_ my father," she returned, echoing his words from their first meeting all those months ago.

"No," he admitted, "but I am _someone's_." This only made Pris smile again.

"Good, then you know how this works," she said carelessly, propping her chin in one hand while trailing the fingers of the other lightly over the surface of the kitchen table. Lucius watched her small digits trace indistinct patterns on the wood, and he felt the first stirrings of lust twist his stomach into a tight knot.

"I can't even imagine why you'd want to involve yourself with me," he tried lamely. He needed to take control of this conversation quickly, before it went any further into that dangerous territory in which he'd found himself.

"Really?" Pris countered, disbelief etched on her face. "Well, to start you're very sweet to me, and very kind… when you want to be, mind," she said at Lucius' raised eyebrow. "You've got a very dry sense of humor, which I adore." As she enumerated his positive aspects, she counted them off on her fingers. "I feel comfortable around you. Sometimes men make me nervous. I guess we can thank Bill for that. And you're not exactly hard on the eyes, if I'm being entirely honest."

When she finished, she found that Lucius was gazing at her with a mixture of longing and apprehension.

"While I appreciate the listing of my finer qualities," he began in a rough voice, "I have to say you don't know me as well as you may think you do."

"I could if you'd let me," Pris shot back, but Lucius shook his head.

"And watch you run screaming from my home? No, I think a discussion of my past is best left for another time."

At this, Pris reached out and took one of his hands in hers, startling him. When he looked into her eyes, he saw nothing but sincerity, and trust.

"Lucius, I like you for the man you've become, not the man that you were."

Something inside him was set loose by her declaration. His sanity, such that it was, had been well and truly interrupted. Suddenly, he was looming over her, all fair hair and burning intensity, and she couldn't help but push herself further back in her seat.

"I am a _very_ bad man, Priscilla."

His eyes were large and luminous in the moonlight, and she had no doubt of the veracity of his words.

"I have seen things. I have done things, hurt people… young women like yourself, and worse than your Bill could even _imagine_." His fingers traced the curve of her jaw, and her lips parted in a soft gasp. He smiled, a pained, awful thing, and lowered his lips to her ear. "And I _reveled_ in it."

"Are you… are you trying to scare me?" she whispered.

"Yes," Lucius hissed. He nuzzled the skin on her neck, and felt rather than saw her grip the arms of her chair

"Why?" she managed.

"Because I deserve nothing less than your contempt. They were right to leave me here, to send me away. If you knew the darkness inside of me…" he trailed, resting his forehead on her shoulder. Pris swallowed nervously, but when she spoke her voice was steady.

"Whatever it is you may have done in the past, I know you won't hurt me, Lucius."

"Do you now?" he rumbled. Pris thought he sounded intoxicated, though on what she couldn't guess, and he really was beginning to make her very anxious. This suspense was killing her; she didn't know if he was going to hit her, or kiss her.

"I know the look a man gets in his eyes when he's going to hit me," she reminded him. She thought that might put a damper on his momentary bout of insanity, but he simply grinned at her. The sight was terrifying.

"There are other ways to hurt your beautiful body, dear Pris."

His head went back to the crook of her neck, and she sucked in a frightened breath.

"Lucius?"

"Hmm?"

"You're scaring me."

He didn't answer her, not right away. Instead, he raised his head and looked deep into her eyes. He brought a hand up and cupped her chin, brushing her lower lip with his thumb, ever mindful of her injuries.

"…Good."

Then his mouth was upon hers, sucking her lower lip between his teeth and laving it gently with his tongue. Pris couldn't stop the long, low moan of desire that escaped her mouth, and her head fell back against the chair with an indelicate thump.

It was over as quickly as it had started, though, when Lucius forcefully pushed himself away from her. Pris wanted to cry in frustration.

"Do you see what kind of man I am?" he spat, self-disgust lacing his every word. "I am taking advantage of you, my friend, in your time of need."

She stared at him, studying his face carefully. When he refused to meet her eyes, she gathered her courage and spoke. "Lucius?" His gaze travelled slowly but steadily upward until, finally, they were face to face once more. "Kiss me again."

He was dumbfounded. "What?"

"Kiss me again." Her voice was strong and clear. He knew she meant what she said, but he could still hardly believe his ears.

"Why?"

Pris sighed. He was determined to make this as difficult as possible, but he no longer intimidated her. She lifted her arms and placed her hands on both sides of his head, framing his face with her fingers, and this time he gasped.

"I told you, I like you for the man you've become, not the man that you were… and the only thing I _need_ is you."

She pulled him to her and covered his mouth with her own, and whatever dam was holding back the floodtides of Lucius' passion broke. Suddenly she was drowning in him. His lips manipulated hers softly but firmly, and when he sucked her tongue into his hot mouth, she keened in pleasure. Where had he learned to do _that?_

Lucius lifted Pris out of her chair and onto the kitchen table in one smooth motion, and he heard her gasp.

"Oh, my," she breathed, tilting her head back as he assaulted her neck with his lips and tongue. Pris was so aroused she could hardly think straight. His large hands swept up her sides, and he used one to pull on her short black hair,  
indelicately exposing the column of her throat to him. He scraped his teeth over her sensitive flesh, soothing the rough touch with gentle sweeps of his tongue.

"Oh, God. What are you doing to me, Lucius?" Pris moaned throatily. Her first and only lover had been Bill, and he had never touched her like this, never evoked this soaring passion.

"I am giving you what you need, dear Pris," he murmured into the shell of her ear, and then took the lobe between his lips.

She would have melted into a puddle on the floor, if it were possible. Instead, she wove her fingers though his long, loose hair and held on for dear life. The things he was doing to her… and with only his mouth! She could not even begin to imagine the intensity of feeling that would come when he finally put his hands on her. Somewhere in the distance a car door slammed, and Lucius froze. Pris mewled in protest when his lips left her ear, but the sound died away as she realized why he had stopped.

Bill had just pulled up in his big, blue pickup truck.


End file.
